Dicty News Electronic Edition Volume 22, number 11 May 07, 2004 Please submit abstracts of your papers as soon as they have been accepted for publication by sending them to dicty@northwestern.edu or by using the form at http://dictybase.org/db/cgi-bin/dictyBase/abstract_submit. Back issues of Dicty-News, the Dicty Reference database and other useful information is available at dictyBase - http://dictybase.org. ============= Abstracts ============= Insights into morphogenesis from a simple developmental system. Rex L. Chisholm1 and Richard A. Firtel2. 1 Cell and Molecular Biology, Center for Genetic Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, 303 E. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. 2 Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, Division of Biological Sciences, Center for Molecular Genetics, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0634 Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, in press We are only starting to understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie cell and tissue movements during morphogenesis in metazoans. Dictyostelium discoideum provides a valuable model system for understanding these events Ñ as it has for chemotaxis Ñ despite the many differences between this social amoeba and more complex organisms. Genetic and genomic studies, combined with real-time imaging, have identified key pathways that regulate morphogenesis in Dictyostelium and which are likely to have similar roles in metazoans. Special note to the Dicty Community: Rex and Rick would like to thank everyone in the Dicty community who helped with the review by providing invaluable assistance with some of the pathways (particularly Alan Kimmel and Jeff Williams) and others who provided information of mutant phenotypes. Note that the table described in the review is an on-line table containing known Dicty mutants that exhibit morphological phenotypes. The table not only lists the genes, phenotypes, and gene product, the table also has a link the the genomic site of that gene in DictyBase with all of the additional information available in dictyBase. Go to http://dictybase.org/DdDevelopmentMutants.htm The goal is to continually update the table so that when someone connects, the information in the table is as up-to-date as possible. Thus, if you have either a new mutant or if a gene was left out, please contact dictyBase so the table can be updated. Rex and Rick hope that this table will not only be useful to the readers of the review itself but will also be of general help to the Dicty community and non-Dicty workers interested in how Dicty has illuminated our understanding of biological processes. Submitted by: Chisholm Rex [r-chisholm@northwestern.edu] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Structural requirements of dictyopyrones isolated from Dictyostelium spp. in the regulation of Dictyostelium development and in anti-leukemic activity Haruhisa Kikuchi, Kazunori Sasaki, Jun'ichi Sekiya, Yasuo Maeda, Aiko Amagai, Yuzuru Kubohara, and Yoshiteru Oshima Bioorg. Med. Chem. In press. Cellular slime molds are fascinating to the field of developmental biology, and have long been used as excellent model organisms for the study of various aspects of multicellular development. We have recently isolated a-pyronoids, named dictyopyrones A-D (1-4), from various species of Dictyostelium cellular slime molds, and it was shown that compound 3 may regulate Dictyostelium development. In this study, we synthesized dictyopyrone A-D (1-4) and their analogues, investigated the physiological role of the molecules in cell growth and morphogenesis in D. discoideum, and further verified their effects on human leukemia K562 cells. Nitrogen-containing compounds 22 and 37 strongly inhibited cell growth in K562 leukemia cells, indicating that these compounds may be utilized as novel lead compounds for anti-leukemic agents. Submitted by: Yuzuru Kubohara [kubohara@showa.gunma-u.ac.jp] =============================================================================== [End Dicty News, volume 22, number 11]